Inspirational Fun Days Out - Castle Heddingham Battle

As we have just had the Easter weekend and I always like to do something constructive with my time off. As I have always said no work and no play makes Ali a very dull girl indeed and I'm sure no-one wishes to read blogs about how many words I've written for my next novel or how many submissions I've made that day for my latest completed novel!!!







So I found an events page for 'Essex at Easter' advertising a Medieval Siege and Battle Re-enactment day at a local Castle Heddingham near to Braintree. I have always wanted to see a battle re-enactment from British history and as I have a huge fascination with castles (having written three books about a bunch of fictional witches living in castles around the UK My book website 'plug plug').

As I arrived we could see people from The Medieval Siege Society Ltd (oh yes it's BIG business) dressed in some very realistic costumes carrying various weaponry such as swords, bows, spears, which to me was all very exciting, because although my imaginary covens live in modern Britain they have withdrawn from society and live as they did in the past. So to see what I had envisioned in real life was exhilarating.

We walked around the Castle inside, which I must say was impressively preserved and decorated with wall hanging and rugs. There was archery to try and a traditional camping area where we could look at the crafts and chat to the serious re-enactment fans who lived for the full weekend as they would've one in the middle ages.








No cheating either with a gas stove tucked away in the tents somewhere. They ate traditional food and drink cooked over old log fires. They had a falconry display, a jester and some minstrels playing traditional music. I was very impressed and recommend stepping back in time for a little insight into our illustrious history. Plus it gave me inspiration for writing further about the Romanov Witches coven in my next Beyond Series of Books.

Cities of Old Are The Best

As a supernatural writer I love all things old, dark and creepy... So a visit to York was inevitable and I have to say was one of the best city breaks I have been on for sinister, ghostly ambience, I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone else.

Yorvik Viking Centre:- An Interesting museum where you climb aboard a car and ride through the Viking Village of old York. You listen to conversations and interestingly they add the life like man sat on his porcelain throne at the bottom of his back garden… Yes Vikings had back gardens. Interesting. The place smelt of old York too, which wasn’t very pleasant, but I love museums.

Ghost walk:- York is such an old city that it cannot be visited without going on the obligatory ghost walk around the older parts of the city including The Shambles, which I loved, very atmospheric and reminding me of Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter movies. The stories were pretty much standard as I have heard on other ghost walks, vengeful spirits who have been wronged in life and death… blah, blah blah, but entertaining evening none the less. I love walking around old cities on a crisp dark evening whilst listening to ghost stories.

The Golden Fleece:- As you know I like all things supernatural so I had to visit the most haunted pub in York, The Golden Fleece, which has been investigated by the Most Haunted Team on a couple of occasions. It does have a very gothic and spooky feel to it, especially when they have a real human skeleton sat at the bar and every night they change it’s sitting posture and pour it a drink. Creepy and intriguing, God I love scary things and places. Am I weird? Probably… Do I care? Not really…

Details of Alison's Supernatural Books

Cornish Fairy Gardens and Satanic Locations

I loved Cornwall so much I returned. Went to Carnglaze slate caverns which was interesting, but slightly disappointed as I was expecting something along the lines of the Caves of Drac. There was also a cute little fairy garden and village you could walk around. When I returned home I was straight off to the Garden Centre to get myself some wild looking plants and some fairy and Dragon Statues. I was mightily dissappointed that they didn't have anything like that and this place is massive!


You can buy little manquins made from coat hangers, smelly candles and pointless other stuff to make you house the envy of your neighbours, but sadly not a fairy or dragon in sight. Rubbish. Even tried to google some pictures of fairy gardens and all I got was a stupid site selling fairy liquid!






In complete contrast we went to see Roche Rock. A great spooky and sinister location that was used to film the third omen film. Very atmospheric and would love to use this location in one of my books. I was even brave enough to climb up the rickety ladders to the top. Cracking Views.